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It's not a crime if we do it with an app

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Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#551

Post by AnthonyMouse »

viraptor wrote: post #545
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If these are the upfront conditions, why is that an issue? Because they might have both preferred 25 hours with flexibility to a forced choice between 40 inflexible hours or 10 flexible ones. > uber's model doesn't seem to be profitable if they have to pay and employ with reasonable conditions. Uber is an app. Their primary cost is paying drivers. They're not going to fail because you imposed this inflexibility on…

> both preferred 25 hours with flexibility That's not an option though. The option uber gives is "maybe 25, maybe not, you'll find out on the day". That's still "how do we keep uber in business". There are alternatives like good quality overprovisioned public transport which can take most of those customers. It can also deal with peak situations like events. It's a sunk cost fallacy to think of uber as some kind of l…

> That's not an option though. The option uber gives is "maybe 25, maybe not, you'll find out on the day".

It's 25 when it's 25. Which you can still have a preference for when the alternative is 10, or the alternative is "40 hours but your hours are 9PM to 1AM and then 5AM to 9AM".

> That's still "how do we keep uber in business".

Uber is still in business when they require you to work split shifts in the wee hours. We're trying to save drivers and riders from the consequences of foolish rules.

> There are alternatives like good quality overprovisioned public transport which can take most of those customers.

Overprovisioned public transport is just Uber with lower efficiency. You have a municipal bus with zero or one passengers instead of a smaller private car with one passenger or avoid the trip because you know before you start that no one is going there.

> It can also deal with peak situations like events.

Ten thousand people exit the stadium at the same time and each want to go to a different destination, thousands of which are single family homes in the suburbs.

> It's a sunk cost fallacy to think of uber as some kind of last resort employer that can ignore the rules.

The assumption is that Uber is bad, but Uber is better than taxi medallion cartels or private cars that then have to be parked in the city instead of picking up a different fare going in the opposite direction.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#552

Post by arrosenberg »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #538
arrosenberg wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget about oil for a second. Why is a large box of cereal $8 at the supermarket? It costs pennies to produce, maybe a dollar in landed cost. The small box costs almost the same landed and it's $5, which is also absurd. There is no supply shortage of corn and sugar, and no glut of demand for cereal. I'm not stupid, I understand supply and demand. COVID was 4 years ago. Explain the $8 box of cereal.

> Why is a large box of cereal $8 at the supermarket? It costs pennies to produce, maybe a dollar in landed cost. The small box costs almost the same landed and it's $5, which is also absurd. There is no supply shortage of corn and sugar, and no glut of demand for cereal. Most of the cost of the cereal isn't the cereal. First you're paying for the store. That's real estate costs -- currently excruciating. Property ta…

> First you're paying for the store. That's real estate costs -- currently excruciating. Property tax and insurance, based on the real estate prices. The store needs heat and light, that's oil and electricity. There are people who work at the store, has your state recently increased its minimum wage?

Same box of cereal costs the same in Southern California and South Carolina. South Carolina is cheaper in every way - electricity, rent, insurance, and labor. Same $8 premium cost for a commodity product that costs a dollar or so to land.

No one is competing for the customers' dollar, they are imposing a price scheme because there is extremely limited competition and distributors are being allowed to abuse their pricing power.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#553

Post by CogitoCogito »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #541
CogitoCogito wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the correct answer is fines, but I disagree that the government should concern itself with whether or not the company decides to take it out on employees who don't deserve it. It's up to the company to decide how it should be run. As long as the government disincentivizes the actions by making the fines high enough, that is good enough.

> I disagree that the government should concern itself with whether or not the company decides to take it out on employees who don't deserve it Those employees disagree with you and they vote. Every district has large employers whose employees would, as a voting bloc, flip a primary or even general election.

I honestly don't believe this is the case. I think Americans would largely support increased fines for corporate malfeasance. I think it much more likely that the large fines aren't assessed because those in the position to be fined also as a rule have more influence over the system itself. Though the result is the same in the end I guess.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#554

Post by Terr_ »

ogleopoly wrote: post #492
Terr_ wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also unlikely that the person working on the Russet Quality Calculator feature has any knowledge about the market shares of each customer and their boardroom deals.

[flagged]

I think you're satirically confusing (A) "you can't shift all responsibility into superiors" versus (B) "you're guilty for any kind of involvement even if you didn't know your actions were contributing to an evil thing."

While (A) factored prominently in the Neuremberg trials, it doesn't create (B).

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#555

Post by [deleted] »

bschne wrote: post #537
arrosenberg wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that answers the question of why a box of cereal that costs a dollar or so to deliver landed to a store costs me $8 to buy. Middle men are taking a huge chunk of the pie!

Their point is simply that your cost estimate is likely wrong. > It costs pennies to produce, maybe a dollar in landed cost Kellanova last had gross, operating, and net margins of ~35%, ~13%, and ~8%, respectively [1]. Likewise, Walmart achieved ~25%, ~4%, ~3% [2]. This isn't really compatible with "someone makes 700% of net profits on this box of cereal", unless you assume cereal is single-handedly subsidizing huge…

[deleted]

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#556

Post by plankers »

olalonde wrote: post #451
gmueckl wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any free, unregulated market will eliminate competitors until they create an oligopoly or even a single monopoly. It's an immediate consequence of the rules of the market.

That's simply false. Name one unregulated market where this has occurred.

The U.S. before antitrust laws existed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Steel_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Pacific_Railroad

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#557

Post by dartos »

derektank wrote: post #259
dartos wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's because most crimes "individuals" do are straightforwardly illegal and easy to prosecute, whereas the "crime if a corporation does it" are not Maybe that’s something that should be adjusted by a legislative body. Crimes are only “easy” or “difficult” to prosecute because of the laws as they’re written.

>Crimes are only “easy” or “difficult” to prosecute because of the laws as they’re written. Yes and no. Yes in the sense that you can make crimes very easy to prosecute, no in the sense that doing so usually makes unobjectionable or even good behavior illegal in the process. Take insider trading for example. It would be very easy to simply make selling the stock of a company you work for, or are in any other way part…

> Yes in the sense that you can make crimes very easy to prosecute, no in the sense that doing so usually makes unobjectionable or even good behavior illegal in the process

I’m no legal expert, ofc, but I’d bet that a good enough legislature could strike a balance that society can be okay with.

Whatever we have now isn’t that.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#558

Post by scarface_74 »

izacus wrote: post #501
scarface_74 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your words were > One's investment into a criminal enterprise could arguably be contributing to or encouraging that crime Every shareholder is an “investor”. Well not really, when you buy a stock unless you buy at IPO or secondary offering, you are buying an ownership share from another holder. So if you really want to go after “investors” you would have to find all of the investors who invested before the company we…

You're reading the post of the OP uncharitably (which is against the rules) and are deliberately misinterpreting their words into ridiculous extremes. Please unlearn that.

How would you read it “charitably”? Be’s repeatedly said that all investors should be criminally on the hook for crimes committed by the companies they invest in.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#559

Post by cratermoon »

vtashkov wrote: post #527
zemo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument that you are making is that a single entity controlling the pricing of a good is bad. That's not a counter-argument, it's the same argument. It's bad when a government does it, it's bad when an oligopoly does it. More than one thing can be bad.

No, the argument I an countering is that since oligopoly is bad, government control would fix it. It has NEVER fixed it. Only more free market could.

https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#560

Post by FireBeyond »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #452
FireBeyond wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. That's Uber's business problem to solve, though, not ours. Sucks to be them. The solution isn't "well, let's make it easier for Uber and screw over their not-employees". The government, the people, are not obligated to ensure profitability is possible for every corporations every idea.

> That's Uber's business problem to solve, though, not ours. The solution is going to be dictated by economics, not magic. There is no option where they convert all of the part-time drivers to full-time without any increase in the demand for rides. What they're trying to do is avoid cutting off the part-time drivers entirely. But stop trying to force them to do that, it doesn't actually help people.

Let's not pretend that they want to have all the benefits of having those part-time drivers without any of the responsibilities.

I don't expect them all to be converted to FTEs. But this unavailability BS is just that, BS.

"You are unable to log in because we have enough drivers to meet anticipated demand." Simple. Not log in, and then do a job or two then "oops, you've been randomly selected to be unable to earn money for the next hour".

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